


Reunion Tour, Rewritten

by anonymousAlchemist, emi_rose



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Found Family, Gen, HOTBOY, TW: Suicide, This is gonna get wild, boat thievery, boner discourse, emotional whiplash like a motherfucker, goddesses are also dating and it's adorable, goddesses get real, hold on to your butts folks, if youve read old man taako about half of this is similar, look this is the zaniest blend of angst n humor you're gonna read, lup is a flamethrower, or: lucretia dies and the boys try to bring her back, sassy ghosts, wacky hijinks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-09 15:24:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12279234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousAlchemist/pseuds/anonymousAlchemist, https://archiveofourown.org/users/emi_rose/pseuds/emi_rose
Summary: After the Day of Story and Song, Lucretia has work left to do, and Istus will not abide by her attempts to change fate. Tres Horny Boys try to help, and things get very out of hand, very quickly.





	1. Respite

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by that tumblr post going around, we’ve teamed up to write a zany sad adventure. 
> 
> Here are the rules: Ten chapters, five chapters each, alternating authors. Two completely different genres. One story. Each author needs to wrangle the genre back with their chapter, while keeping a consistent narrative. 
> 
> The two genres we picked are our respective wheelhouses: angst (Emi) and lolz with a side of feels (Iz). Odd numbered chapters are by Emi and even numbered chapters by Iz.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia is so very tired. Istus does not abide.

Lucretia is tired. Not tired in the way that saving the world makes you need to sleep for a day or two, but tired in a way that eats at your bones and replaces vitality and joy with the festering sadness that has finally escaped from the place where it’s been walled off. She can’t protect herself from it anymore. She knows that she’s spiraling fast. 

The day before the one she has designated as her last, Lucretia takes a sphere from the Moonbase to the surface, landing outside Neverwinter in a copse of trees. She disguises herself with a quiet snap of her cloak and walks the twenty minutes to the small apothecary’s on the outskirts of town, rarely frequented by anyone of import. The shopkeeper is blandly helpful, weighing out the poppy pods and wishing her a nice day. He doesn’t note the quantity, nor the trembling hands of his customer. She is grateful for small mercies.

A bubble of silence follows her through the hallway between the hangar and her room. Conversations resume their normal tenor in her wake. As she passes what used to be the Reclaimers’ quarters, Magnus barrels around the corner and skids to a screeching halt in front of her, aggressively ignoring the collective decision to treat Lucretia as a pariah. 

“Lucretia!” He greets her with a fist bump and wraps her up in a hug, lifting her off her feet. She’s genuinely happy to see him, and she wants to ensure that his last memory of her is, if not outright happy, at least pleasant. Magnus puts her down and dusts off his hands. 

“Hey, I know you’re busy, Luce, but remember we have dinner with everyone at six tomorrow night!” 

A flash of something inscrutable crosses her face before she rearranges it into something more neutral. She smiles. 

“How could I forget?”

Magnus flashes her a big grin and heads off in the opposite direction, making a mental note to carve her another duck and to see if he can catch her alone later, to see if she’s alright. He briefly thinks about showing up at her door that night, but dismisses the idea — she seemed to be in a hurry and he would hate to keep her from important work. 

That evening Lucretia pads over to the kitchen to refill her teapot for the last time. It’s served her well for the past decade, and she’s always been appreciative of well-made utilitarian objects. As she’s leaving the kitchen, Taako swans in. He looks her up and down blankly. She opens her mouth and before she can speak, he breezes past through the door, yelling “Don’t let it hit your ass on the way out, Lucy!”

She doesn’t respond. 

In her quarters, Lucretia sits at her desk, the cold black tea forgotten. She reads over the document in front of her one more time, and then, satisfied, she seals it and puts it atop the stack of neatly organized journals. This is not the first time she’s stayed up all night revising her will and making sure everything is in order, but it will be the last.

The sun rises, and she ruminates on it while methodically working the mortar and pestle — she’s never quite gotten used to talking about the sun in the singular. When she’s satisfied with her work, she tips the ground poppy pods into her favorite tea infuser — celadon green — careful to not spill anything. That wouldn’t do. 

When the brew has steeped sufficiently, Lucretia is careful to clean the infuser and dispose of the incriminating grounds. It wouldn’t become her to be sloppy now, so close to the end. She sits on her bed and gulps the tea quickly. It tastes about as bad as she imagined, made worse by how strong it had to be to do its job. She squares her shoulders, places the cup on her bedside table, and lies down. She closes her eyes and hopes that death will take her quickly and quietly. No one is there to see her breaths slow, imperceptibly fading away. If someone were listening, they would have heard her heart go silent with a sigh, and she slips away with a whisper.

As she drifts out of her body, Lucretia’s made aware of another presence in the room. Lup, resplendent in the regalia of the Raven Queen, steps through a rift in space into her room. Her face falls as soon as she recognizes where she has been sent. 

“Oh, Lucretia, I had no idea this was for you, what happened?” 

Lucretia, by now floating out of her physical form and towards the Astral Plane, gives a faint smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. 

“I wasn’t feeling well, I suppose.” 

Lup leans over her. 

“Did...did it hurt? Are you okay? I mean, I know you’re not okay, you’re dead,  _ hachi-machi _ , Lucy, I wasn’t expecting this to happen for a while.” 

Lup rests a spectral hand on Lucretia’s equally-spectral shoulder and the women share a quiet laugh. 

“It’s okay. I know what you meant,” Lucretia says, “and, no. I didn’t feel a thing.” 

If Lup knows that Lucretia had killed herself, she keeps quiet. Lup offers Lucretia her hand. Lucretia takes it, and they head toward the Astral Plane. 

As they travel in companionable silence, Lucretia idly wishes that she hadn’t saved the world, if only so that her memory could be fed to Fisher and no one would remember her or her betrayals. Instead, everyone knows what she did. At least she won’t have to face them anymore - souls in the Astral Plane are afforded the blessing of anonymity.

As they get closer, Lup pauses and turns to look at Lucretia. “Uh, babe, you’re not going to like this.” 

If Lucretia were still connected to her body, she would have felt her heart drop into her stomach and her hands shake, but in this form she remains unmoved. 

“Lup. What, exactly, am I not going to like.” 

Lup shrugs with a sheepish grin and a wave, and with a flash, Lucretia is no longer in the Astral Plane. She is somewhere important, somewhere she’s aware of but can’t quite comprehend, and the room she’s in begins to come into focus.

“Oh, shit,” she breathes, and beholds the goddess before her. 

“Lucretia. I’m sure you know why you’re here?” Istus puts her knitting down in her lap. 

“I don’t think I should be, actually.” Lucretia looks balefully at the goddess. 

“You, Lucretia, have fouled all of this - “ and she gestures to the immeasurably complex piece she’s knitting “- up, quite impressively.” 

Lucretia looks closer and sees that a thread has unraveled all the way to the center, disrupting the pattern and spilling tiny glittering beads onto the stone floor.

“Lady Istus, I don’t -- I don’t understand. I just want to be left alone. I’m going to leave. I’m  _ dead. _ ”

“About that. I think you’ll have some difficulty there. We’ve got quite a lot to discuss.”

The room shifts, and Lucretia is abruptly swathed in a shawl of deep purple shot through with red and seated in a plush chair with a hot mug of aromatic liquid in front of her. She eyes it suspiciously, and glares at Istus, seated across from her. Istus smiles placidly back and picks up a shimmering stitch. 

“So. This is how it is.”


	2. Better than board games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family game night! Also, breaking and entering. Also, death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did someone order some....EMOTIONAL WHIPLASH??

After everything is over and everyone goes their separate ways, their natural response is to start having dinner parties. If, that is, you define “dinner parties” as “a whole gaggle of friends, family, acquaintances, and anyone who feels like showing up on a Saturday night crashing someone’s house, and eating all their food.” Dinner parties: IPRE style. 

Magnus calls it “family dinner.” Taako rolls his eyes whenever he’s in earshot. Nonetheless, Saturday nights are semi-strictly set aside for catching up, for invading the welcoming host’s house and playing fantasy video games in the living room and board games at the kitchen table, and for Taako and Lup — and whoever has been bribed or conned into sous-chef-slavery — to make enough food to feed an army. 

They don’t mind cooking anymore - not since the one time they tried potluck. It didn’t go well. 

Tonight, it’s the Starblaster crew, minus Lucretia and Lup, plus Angus. It’s intimate. It’s chill as fuck, except for the fact they’re playing Fantasy Monopoly. That part is not going well. 

“Fuck!” Barry exclaims as he lands on a property that Taako owns. 

“Oh hell yeah, cough up those big bucks m’dude! Gimme those fat stacks of cash my man,” Taako says, rubbing his hands. Barry groans and forks over a large pile of paper that Taako greedily adds to his own. 

“This is the worst,” Magnus says. His pile of cards is pitifully small.  

“Iunno, I’m feeling pretty good about this,” Taako says. His stack of cards is upsettingly large.

“How do you even win this game?” Davenport says. “I don’t think it’s even possible. I don’t think we’ve  _ finished  _ a game, ever.”

“Y’know? I actually have no fucking idea, Cap’n’port,” Taako says, rolling dice. 

“But sir, you’re winning!” Angus says. 

“Well of course I am,” Taako says. “I’m  _ Taako. _ ” 

“I wish Lup was here,” Merle says. “She’s the only one that gives that card-shark over there a run for his money.” He’s given up on playing entirely and is whispering to a plant he produced from  _ somewhere _ . 

“Lulu was gonna come, but she fuckin’ ghosted earlier, yelling about some important job that just came up,” Taako says, flipping his hair. “No idea about Lucy, what the fuck’s up with her?” 

“She said she was going to be here,” Magnus says. “I saw her yesterday! I made her a duck.” 

“Sir, you’ve made her like, fifty ducks,” Angus points out. 

“And she says every one is her favorite,” Magnus says smugly. 

“Maggie, you know that’s not like, the truth, right?” 

“Would Lucretia lie?” Magnus says, and Merle and Taako stare at him incredulously. Magnus shrugs, ignoring how uncomfortable the room has become. “Okay, so that was maybe a bad question.” 

“No shit,” Taako says. “Lying is Lucy’s middle name.” 

“I think her name is Prima, actually,” Davenport says. “It was on her application.” 

“Cap, I could literally not give less of a fuck,” Taako says. 

“But if she said she was going to be here,” Angus says, trailing off. 

“Oh my gods, don’t tell me that you’re  _ worried _ about her, Agnes.” 

“ _ I’m  _ worried about her,” Magnus says. 

“Maggie!” Taako says, a gasp of mock-betrayal. “Maggie, are you telling me that you’re worried about  _ Lucretia Lightbringer _ , one of the strongest mages in the planar system? Please. She can take care of herself, ya feel?” 

“Maybe we should go check on her,” Merle suggests. “Beats getting beaten at Fantasy Monopoly.” 

Taako throws the property cards that he’s flipping through down on the table.    
  


“Fine!” he says. “Fine! Let’s go annoy Lucy!” 

Magnus springs up. “Great!” 

____ 

Lucretia’s door won’t open. They’ve tried knocking, yelling, Phantom Fist-ing, even Nitpicking. Nothing. 

“Maybe she’s not in,” Merle suggests. 

“She’s always in,” Magnus says. He’s turning the duck that he made for her over in his hands.  “It’s like what, eleven?” 

“No social life, huh? Sounds like her,” Taako says. “Alright, stand back, boner squad. Gods, I’ve been wanting to try this  _ forever _ ,” 

Magnus and Merle, conditioned from a century and change of Taako’s shenanigans, hastily take a step back. 

Taako makes a couple of funny hand gestures and points his wand at the door, and a great booming bell rings, accompanied by a cymbal crash and a shattering noise.  Magnus and Merle clap their hands over their ears and share a look of consternation. Taako glares at the door through narrowed eyes. 

The door clicks open. He grins. “Fuck  _ yeah _ it worked!  _ Knock _ , but  _ better. _ ” 

Magnus tries the door again, and it swings over to reveal the bedroom, laid bare except for Lucretia’s body on the bed, and Lup staring with alarm as she’s caught red handed, rooting through the drawers of Lucretia’s desk. 

“This is... not what I was expecting,” Magnus says with a frown.

“Oh, hey guys,” Lup says, looking up from where she’s digging through paperwork. “Jeez, ‘ko, what’s with the noise?” 

“Lulu! Hey! Wait, didn’t you have some big job tonight?” Taako asks, wandering over to look at what Lup is sorting through. “Are we snooping? You  _ know  _ I’m down for some snooping. You sure we should be snooping, if Luce is just sleeping there?” 

“Er,” Lup says, and closes the drawer with a snap. “Wow, I really dropped the ball on this one. Really wanged this one up, I probably shoulda stopped by dinner before wrapping shit up here.” 

“What are you talking about?” Merle asks. Lup shifts from foot to foot for a moment. 

“Well, Luce’s dead,” Lup says. 

General chaos. “Lucretia’s dead?!” “What!” “Bullshit.” “Luce is  _ dead!?”  _ Magnus’s voice rises above the din. 

“Is she okay?” Magnus asks. “Wait, no, stupid question, but is she, like,  _ okay _ ?” 

“Yeah, she’s fine, but she’s dead. Big Momma called it a coupla hours ago.” 

“She’s dead?” 

“I just said she’s dead!” Lup says, exasperated now. “Hey, maybe sit down m’dude, you’re looking kinda pale.” 

Magnus sits down heavily at Lucretia’s desk. He looks up at Lup. 

“So. Just to make it clear. She’s dead.” 

“Yeah dude, she’s dead. D-E-D. Dead.” 

“Oh,” Magnus says. “Fuck.” 


	3. triste, et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus carves a duck. The IPRE crew takes a trip down memory lane. Also, Lup turns into a human (well, elf) flamethrower. Also, Lucretia gets set on fire.

Despite her calm reiteration of the facts, no one can quite believe Lup. Lucretia  _ can’t _ be dead, Lucretia who died the least in their peripatetic century, Lucretia who wrenched them apart, Lucretia who loved and protected, Lucretia made of steel. It’s physically painful to think about. Magnus’s features twist as he stares down at the duck he’d brought. 

The world is set spinning off its axis. Everything is too-sharp at the center and blurs around the edges. There’s nothing he can do, but he feels the need to do something, anything, to keep the moon right-side-up. Hot tears spill over onto the bedspread, spreading as the moment stretches to its breaking point, suspended over the abyss. Magnus, possessed by grief, unfolds Lucretia’s carefully steepled fingers and tucks the duck under them. He neatens her robes and her hair, rendered slightly askew — even in death Lucretia is fastidious. His touch is graceful and tender. She is cold under his hands.

Magnus steps back and Merle steps forward. He stretches up on his toes and kisses Lucretia’s cold forehead. Tears drip on her waxy cheeks. Lup has made herself scarce — the work of tying up loose ends can wait. Taako, surprisingly, has not done the same as his sister, instead, he unfurls a large piece of fabric from the tip of his wand with a loud  _ snap _ .

The shroud is heavy blue and silver brocade, reproduced by memory from a submission on Legato, the beautiful filigree pattern pressed into their memories forever by the voidfish. He’s muttering angrily to himself as he envelops her body -

“Yeah, yeah, this is just  _ fucking  _ typical, isn’t it, you’re leaving us to clean up your mess, Luce, what the fuck! What the  _ flying fuck _ , why the fuck are you dead — Maggie, grab the end of the shroud for me — and you’re fucking  _ dead _ , well, I guess you had this  _ coming _ , alright, yeah, you had this coming you  _ absolute dipshit —  _ Merle, grab the other end, shut  _ up _ , I’m not crying, who’s crying? Maggie’s crying cause he’s a sentimental bastard but, look, I’m just doing this because it’s practical, okay, fucking hell Luce. Fuck! Fuck.”  

The body covered, Taako stomps out, almost losing his footing and wiping angrily at his cheeks. He doesn’t bother to slam the door behind him, just leaves a trail of increasingly despondent expletives in his wake. 

Lup disappears shortly thereafter. At first, everyone assumes that she’s off working, but when Barry comes to ask Taako where she is the next day, it’s natural for him to assume she’s dead too. Lup has lost herself in flames, and she’s easy to find. The charred circle she created in the Felicity Wilds is visible from the Moonbase. When her brother and husband arrive, they find her surrounded by charcoal trees, methodically setting fire to haphazardly built structures she’s soaked in something flammable. They wait patiently, silently, for her to finish setting them ablaze, and when she turns, dripping sweat and ash, she has the familiar darkness of grief in her eyes.

“Fuck this noise,” Lup says, and fires one last bolt of flame over her shoulder as she walks away.

Magnus carves duck after duck by rote, whittling until his hands are bloodied from the splinters and the hours of effort. He is reminded of every time Lucretia bandaged his wounds, pulled splinters out of his fingers, and reprimanded him for not taking better care of his craftsman’s hands. The rough wood is the perfect conduit for his grief, and he wishes he could give every one to her. When he stops carving, he blames himself, blames his ignorance, decides Lucretia’s death is his fault because he didn’t check on her, didn’t read the intention on her face or see the poison she carried in her heart or her satchel. He wishes, for a moment, that she’d taken him with her. He shakes that thought away and scrapes the knife against pine, trying to settle his heart. It is lonely work. 

After two days of isolated grief, they come together, not made manifest in a new plane by a warp and weft of silver, but seeking solace in the desperation of loss. They collect, one by one, showing up on Magnus’s doorstep. No words needed.

This time, there is no tension between the six of them. They are in a pile on the floor of Magnus’s living room, splayed out in a tangle of limbs and bodies, the closeness of a century made manifest. Rather than the grief of betrayal wending its way between them, the spaces are filled with the grief of a permanent loss they haven’t experienced. Everyone feels the loss of their missing piece, where Lucretia should be tucked in between Lup and Magnus, at ease at the beginning of a cycle. The last time they arranged themselves like this, they had just arrived on this plane, whole again, whole for the last time. 

Eventually, Lup lazily levitates a journal over — her bag is stuffed with them — and opens it to a page she’s marked. They while away the hours taking turns reading the greatest hits from Lucretia’s journals of their century, reminiscing and laughing through their tears, soothing their grief with the balm of their sister’s words. One by one, they fall asleep cocooned in each other’s love. For a moment, things are okay. 

When they awaken, it takes a moment to remember, and the fragile peace they found in the night is shattered. 

Lucretia had hoped that she would not be afforded a funeral. That her ignominious death would be quiet enough to ignore, that no one would grieve her, that she would be forgotten. She was wrong. After all, she saved the world. 

The crowds spill into the streets of Neverwinter, thousands of people who have come to pay their respects to the woman who set the world to rights. Inside the temple, there’s not a dry eye to be found as Davenport speaks, graciously eulogizing Lucretia in words that she ripped from him for a decade. Against all odds, he speaks of forgiveness, of bonds, of a love and friendship that survived even the deepest betrayals. 

Friends, co-workers, lovers, family all exchange comforting touches and whispers and gentle tears. And when the time comes to pay their final respects, quiet prayers are carried on the wind as the funeral pyre is set ablaze. As her body burns, the notes of a song that everyone knows, and no one can forget, trail after the smoke. Angus McDonald plays a rosewood violin and weeps for the only mother he’d ever known.

Lup is the only one to first notice that Merle, Taako, and Magnus have disappeared. When others start to notice, it is assumed that they are grieving in their own way. This assumption is not entirely incorrect. 


	4. DAB! HOTBOY!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys have a sing-song. Death mostly involves a lot of walking. Dabbing is of deathly importance. (Stealing, though, that’s pretty easy.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this ones MULTIMEDIA, fam. click the links for the music. you wont regret it.  
> dab&hotboy inspired by that one comic goin' round tumblr [(this one)](http://goosterbold.tumblr.com/post/165774159510/so-ive-been-thinking-about-kravitz-with-raven)

They stumble into Taako’s living room. The house is in disarray. Neither he nor Kravitz had really had the energy or inclination to clean up, what with Lucretia being dead and everything. 

“Sit wherever, boyos, I just wanna grab some stuff before we go fucking off on Magnus’s idiot plan,” Taako says, waving his hand grandiosely at the living room. 

“It’s not stupid,” Magnus protests. “You were totally onboard!” 

“What are you even talking about,” Taako says, as he continues to root through his hall closet for magic trinkets. 

“Are you sure we’re not, you know, gonna get your boyfriend and Lup and Barry after us, if we do this?” Merle asks. 

“Eh,” Taako waves a hand dismissively. “If Krav wants to keep getting this sugar he’ll stay outta it, and Lulu’s not a narc.” 

“If I want some what now?” 

Taako whirls around. 

“Oh shit! Babe! Hi! We’re… totally not doing something illegal?” 

“Mmhmm,” Kravitz says. He’s still in his funeral clothes, which are his regular clothes except he’s switched out his red tie for a black one. “So you’re not opening a portal to the astral plane.”

“Nope,” Taako says. He snaps his finger and cancels the spell that he’s been prepping behind his back. 

“Death happens for a reason, love,” Kravitz says, gentling his voice. 

“We just,” Taako gestures with his hands, “We’re just going to say goodbye, okay, Krav? Just gonna say goodbye. No shenanigans, no bullshit. Closure.” 

Kravitz stares at them for a long second. 

“I don’t believe you,” Kravitz says. Taako beams. He reaches up and pats Kravitz’s cheek. 

“Aw, babe, you’re learning! Help us anyway? Ple-ease? Ango’s graduating next week and he needs the  _ closest thing he has to a mother  _ to be there. We’ll put her soul back afterwards. Promise. Do it for ch’boy, and for ch’boy’s boy.” 

A second staring contest. Taako grins. His eyes are red from crying. Kravitz sighs. His shoulders slump, and he rubs his forehead. 

“She’ll know if you portal in, love. You’re going to want the back entrance.” 

“The back entrance?” Merle asks.  

“It’s an escape hatch,” Kravitz explains. “We installed it after the last incident.”  

Taako hugs Kravitz. Taako stays there just a little too long for it to be socially acceptable. 

_____

The entrance to the Astral Plane is a stone. A stone like many other stones: roundish, greyish, awkwardly positioned on a mountainside. Also it’s labeled with the sigil for the Astral Plane. 

“Wow, it’s not even like they’re trying,” Magnus says. 

“No, I think there’s like, special things you have to do to get in,” Taako says. Merle nods. 

“It’s like that for the Celestial Plane’s gate, too.” Magnus and Taako give him a quizzical look. Merle shrugs. 

“Pan likes to party down,” he says. “So what do we gotta do to get in?” 

“Er,” Taako says, squinting at the map and instructions that Kravitz had written them earlier that day. “Okay, so, sunset, check, west side of mountain, check, labeled with the astral plane, check….er.” 

He looks up. “I think we have to, um, sing?” 

“Like karaoke?” Merle says. 

“Naw, like, actual singing. Hold up m’dudes, let me try something.” 

Taako  [ sings a few bars of the new pop song ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6XagQ2QaQA) hitting all the airwaves in Neverwinter. The door doesn’t budge. He shrugs. 

“Maybe we all have to sing?” Merle says. 

“I don’t want to sing,” Magnus says. 

“Too bad, do you wanna go get Luce or not?” 

“Ooh, can we do the thing, you know, the one about the horses?” Merle asks. 

“Why the fuck not,” Taako says. He starts snapping his fingers. “Okay, three, two, one —” 

They [ sing the song about the horses ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBDa8ZcXRKA&feature=youtu.be) , the one that was banned from the Starblaster after the thirtieth time they played it on the intercom. (“It’s by fantasy Lin Manuel Miranda!” Lup had yelled. “ _ THIS IS ART! WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED! _ ”) 

“Wow, I think it closed up  _ more _ ,” Merle marvels. Taako scoffs. 

“Y’all are useless. Lemme show you how it’s done.” 

“You sang the first one!” Magnus protests. Taako ignores him, and proceeds to transmute a couple of rocks into a guitar. 

“Alright y’all, get ready for the performance of a lifetime,” he says, and strums his guitar. 

This time,  [ it’s a classic ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=u2oHSuULtoQ) . Taako’s voice drops a whole octave. He sounds like Garyl, actually. It’s kind of weird. 

The rock rolls away. Taako slams the guitar on the ground. It bounces. 

“Fuck yeah!” he cheers, as Magnus claps. 

____

The doorway previously covered by the rock is lit by some sort of luminescent fungus. The trio treads carefully down, and as they walk, the narrow passageway arcs into a sort of large cavern, which grows abstractly into a sort of black-void space. There is no way to say how large it is. It could stretch on forever. Death is infinite. There is the whisper of wind through unseen trees. Sometimes, an owl hoots. 

The ravens crow. 

“Dab! Dab!” 

“HOTBOY!” 

“Taako, are the ravens saying dab?” Magnus whispers into Taako’s ear. He nods. 

“Yeah, Lup taught ‘em. Oh shit! They’re saying hotboy now, too! I taught ‘em that, don’t tell Krav,” Taako says. 

“What’s dabbing?” Merle asks. Magnus dabs. 

“Huh,” Merle says. “You kids and your dance moves. What happened to the good old fashioned bump-n-grind?” 

“Please, for the love of gods, never say that again,” Magnus says. 

They walk. The path narrows again. Soon they are flanked by ethereally translucent spirits, walking beside them. The boys don’t recognize the ghosts. Lucretia is not amongst their number. 

The path narrows to a single file. The boys trudge forward, trying not to touch the ghosts. The ravens cluster overhead like dark-hanging clouds, a flurry of wings and beak. 

“Dab!” they call. “Hotboy!” 

“Where are we going?” Merle asks. But the answer soon becomes clear. 

The judge looms up ahead, a monolith of a man with three heads. They stare down each soul. They clap their hands together and send each soul to the proper path. Lines and lines of dead all converge at their feet. The crows are most numerous here.

Taako, Magnus, and Merle approach the judge. The three-faced judge stares them down. “Dab!” the walls echo with birdcall. “HOTBOY!” 

“Jeezy creezy, this is familiar,” Taako groans. “Alright, whatcha got for us. Sins? We ain’t got shit. We saved the world. We’re basically perfect.” 

The judges lean forward. 

“You—” the one on the left says. 

“Are—” the one in the middle continues. 

“Alive.” the one on the right finishes. 

“No shit,” Merle says. The judges shake their heads. It looks ridiculous. 

“You should — ” the one on the left says. 

“Not — “ the one in the middle continues. 

“Be here.” the one on the right finishes. 

“Okay, but we are,” Magnus says. “So if you’re not gonna judge us, can we just go through?” 

“No,” the judges say. 

“Please?” Magnus says. 

“No,” the judges say.

“DAB!” a crow shrieks, very close to the left judge’s ear. The judge flinches, and bats at the bird. But it’s pointless. There are so many, and they’re so loud. 

“Huh,” Taako says. “Say-y, how ‘bout you let us through, and we’ll stop the ravens from yellin’ so much? My boytoy’s got an in with my girl the Raven Queen, we could work somethin’ out, maybe?” 

The judges pause. 

“You could — ” the one on the left says. 

“Do — “ the one in the middle continues. 

“That?” the one on the right finishes. 

Taako nods. “Oh yeah. Most def,” he lies. The judges glance at each other. The ravens continue to yell. The judge on the right grimaces. The judge in the middle raises his brow. The judge on the left looks down at the boys, and back at the other two. They share a glance. They turn back to the trio of adventurers. 

The judges nod, and with a wave of their large hands, indicate that the party might proceed. Magnus grins, and strides forward. 

“Wait,” the judges say. The boys glance back. 

“Before you go — ” the one on the left says. 

“Tell us — “ the one in the middle continues. 

“What is a  _ dab? _ ” the one on the right finishes. 

Magnus dabs. 

  
“Like that!” he says. The judges nod solemnly, and they are waved forward, past the lines of the dead. 

____

The road they are on widens again, no longer a single-file path. They’re not sure how long they’ve been walking. There are less ravens, but still, they crowd the sky, they hop in front of the adventurers. Magnus tosses them scraps of their provisions. Nothing grows down here. They don’t talk much as they walk. They definitely don’t talk about Lucretia. Everything feels slightly unreal, down here. 

Eventually, the road turns to sand, and they find themselves on a riverbank. There is a single pier. There are many boats docked, bobbing gently in the black water like liquid smoke. There is a single ferryman, reading what looks like a newspaper. 

“Did anyone bring any spare change?” Merle asks. 

“Who brings money to a funeral?” Taako scoffs. 

“Challenge him to a fishing contest,” Merle suggests. 

Taako shakes his head vehemently. 

“Oh no, not after the last time I was in a fishing contest. Shit got weird! I’m not doing that again!” 

“What if I use my  _ rogue skills _ and steal a boat?” Magnus suggests. 

“Maggie, I love you like a brother, but you’re the worst rogue I know.” 

“Stealing’s not a bad idea though…” Merle says, eyeing the phalanx of boats stretched across the shoreline. 

“What if we just book it?” Taako suggests. “S’not like the guy’s gonna come after us.” 

_____

It turns out that it’s really easy to steal a boat. 

_____

They cross the river. And they keep crossing the river. And keep crossing the river. And the river is no longer a river, it is a sea, and it stretches wide and far and deep. The waves whisper. Magnus leans over. 

“Holy crap, there are voices!” he says. 

“No shit?” Taako says, and hesitantly puts his ear to the waves. They murmur. 

_ I wanted nothing but her — the last red apple on the shelf — she’s gone and I’m gone — He’s holding my hair — the guy over there looks like a freak — I miss you — what the fuck is up with that guy — god I’m so horny —  _

Taako and Magnus share a look. 

“Oh my gods, death is just infinite boner discourse,” Magnus says. “We have to get Lucretia out of here.” 


	5. it is well with my soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boner discourse gets worrying. The search is on. Magnus takes a detour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry these chapters are kind of short, they're mostly setting up the back half of this. prepare for a wild ride.

 

As their small boat crests a swell, the boner discourse takes a turn for the sinister. Whispers of their names float out of the sea, and the murmurs of the dead become more fervent. 

 

_ Everything was peppermint when I returned - drowning drowning forever - my baby gone - I killed him for it - I miss her so much -  you made me - you caused this - your fault - your fault - you killed us - you killed my baby - you did this -  _

 

Magnus looks stricken. “They know who we are!” he whispers urgently.

 

“Shit,” Taako says under his breath, and taps his wand on the back of the boat, trying to speed it up. 

 

“If they know who we are, then…” he doesn’t need to finish the thought. What would these souls have done to Lucretia, who was just as responsible for the Relic Wars as the rest of them? 

 

They search fruitlessly, for what feels like hours. Time has less meaning here, but their energy still wanes as they comb the sea for a familiar soul. All they find are accusations and regret. Faced with the magnitude of the devastation their relics caused, with souls rising out of the sea in agitation, even Taako begins to soften towards Lucretia, whose soul is nowhere to be found. The idea that any of them would be denied their eternal rest is terrifying. Everything she did to hurt them pales in light of their shared sins. They’ve all done terrible things. 

 

The Eternal Stockade rises out of the mist, and for a moment, no one dares voice the thought they are sharing. 

 

“I know Isthmus — “ Merle begins.

 

“For fucks sake, it’s Istus!” Taako interjects.

 

“Right, right, Istus, she cut us a deal with the Raven Queen so we didn’t have to go to ghost jail. What if…” he trails off.

 

“What if she’s in there?” Magnus finished the sentence. “We have to at least check.”

 

They’re loath to acknowledge the possibility that Istus’s deal did not apply to Lucretia, that her sins were too great to be obviated by saving the world, and that she was thus doomed to suffer in the Eternal Stockade. But. She might be. 

 

Trepidatiously, they steer the boat in the direction of the monolith, knowing that no matter what they find, they will not like it. Rather than the sense of peace that usually pervades the sea of souls, they feel only anxiety. 

 

They see a small island in the sea of souls, impossibly, barely visible through the haze. Hoping that Lucretia has found her way there and avoided confinement, an unspoken decision is made to change direction. When they arrive, there is no one to be seen, rather, a simple small house. Though small, it is clearly crafted with an expert’s eye and expert hands. Something about the construction is familiar. Magnus feels an irresistible pull. He glances back at his two companions.

 

“I don’t think she’s there but I — I need to see, I can’t explain — ” he’s interrupted by Merle.

 

“Go. We’ll wait here for ya, buddy.” He pats Magnus on the shoulder. 

 

Magnus steps carefully off the little dinghy and takes a moment to find his legs again. Butterflies flit in his stomach and he feels a little giddy, because who else here could build a house like that? 

 

He knocks shyly, hesitantly, and after a long moment, the door opens. Julia is there. It’s like a dream. He stares at her, unable to tear his eyes away from her for longer than it takes to blink. She laughs, the laugh he’s missed for a decade, and he’s brought to tears. He wraps her up in his arms.

 

“Hey, you,” she says quietly, muffled by his chest.

 

“Hey, Jules,” he says, voice cracking.

 

“I wasn’t expecting you so soon, the house isn’t ready yet, but —”

 

She pulls away, holds him at arms length, looks him up and down and her breath catches in a half-hitch of a sob. 

 

“Tell me everything. How - what happened?”

 

His gaze is quizzical.

 

“Jules, I'm not — I'm not dead,” he says through tears.

 

“What are you doing here, then? You're not supposed to be here! You can't be here.”

 

“I have some business, I can't really explain,” he whispers.

 

She nods.

 

“I've missed you,” she says, and tucks her head into the crook of his neck.

 

“Listen, Jules, I — I can’t stay. You know that, right?”

 

She nods. “Just for a little while. We’ll have time enough later, when your work is done.”

 

He wraps her in a tight embrace. Her hair and the house are perfumed with lavender, and for a moment, they are whole again.

 

Through the ether, the whisper of the Temporal Chalice echoes into Magnus’s ears, and he wishes, for a moment, that he had taken its offer. But the knowledge that this separation is not final eases the pain of goodbye. 

 

They will see each other again, in this little house, and have lifetimes to love again. But for now, a kiss and a dance to music only they can hear is enough.

 

Their parting is sweet, filled with a promise to return and sealed with a kiss. Julia is loath to close the door behind him, and watches his form retreat.

 

Magnus gets into the boat, eyes still rimmed red with tears. They head for the stockade in silence, with the agitated voices of souls whispering in their wake.


	6. jail.....break?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prison, girlfriends, tea, boyfriends, old frenemies. Not in that order, but you get the gist.

They sail away from the island. Magnus looks longingly back. Taako claps him on the back. 

 

“Eyes on the prize, big guy. She’ll still be there when you kick the bucket,” he says, an awkward approximation of comfort. Magnus nods, and begins to speak — but the boat’s hull crunches against something, and all three of its occupants are thrown forward. 

 

“Shit!” Magnus says, instead, and looks up. The Eternal Stockade looms over them. It is all grey stone and iron, a dark shape in the mist. They’ve washed ashore on a gritty black beach, wet sand that crunches beneath their feet as they climb out of the boat. 

 

“D’you think we should hide the boat?” Merle says. “You know, in case we need to sail back?” 

“Where?” Magnus asks. The beach stretches blankly in an arc, not a spare stone to speak of. Just the sparse building, and the sparser beach. 

“Fair enough,” Merle says amiably. “Also, did any of us think about how we were going to get in?” 

“Nope!” Taako says. “But listen. It can’t be that hard, right? They wanna keep peeps in, not out.” 

“I mean, there are doors,” Magnus says, gesturing at the heavily guarded entrances. 

“We could pretend to be prisoners?” Merle suggests. “Then they’d  _ want  _ to let us in.” 

“Yeah, but then we’d be locked up in the clink, same as the rest of the poor saps inside,” Taako says, shaking his head. “Nah. We gotta do this sneakier than — Magnus, what the flying fuck are you doing?!” 

 

Magnus has walked up to the nearest door. He’s knocking on it, great booming hits. He glances back at his friends. 

 

“I’m knocking on the door, what does it look like I’m doing?” Magnus says. 

“My dude, you can’t just knock on the door!” Taako protests, scrambling up to where Magnus is standing, quickly followed by Merle. 

“Yeah, but I just did,” Magnus says. He knocks on the door again. The sound echoes. 

 

A long, tense moment. Then the door opens. A slim, familiar woman wearing a dark uniform stands in front of them. 

 

“Maureen?” Magnus exclaims. 

“What are you three idiots doing here?” Maureen Miller says, astonished. 

“Lookin’ for our friend,” Taako says. “It’s cool! It’s totally above board. Got official reaper approval and everything. Just checkin’ on things. ” 

“No hard feelings about, you know, all of the ruckus that happened last time?” Merle says. “We won’t hold the whole giant ghost conglomerate thing against you, or the creepy singing, and you won’t hold our attacking your son against us?” 

“Can we come in?” Magnus says. 

Maureen rolls her eyes. 

“Well, if you’re here on official business,” she says, and stands aside to let them in. 

 

They walk in, and Maureen shuts the door behind them. She waves them along. 

 

“Walk quickly now, the spirits get restless.” 

“Not to be blunt, bubbeleh, but why aren’t you in jail, too?” Taako asks, as he glances at the cells. 

“I didn’t technically do any necromancy,” Maureen explains. “Reduced sentence. Anyway, tell me how my son is,” Maureen demands, as she leads them through the quiet dark halls of the building.

“Well, Maureen, last I saw of him, he built a robo-mecha-elevator-suit,” Taako says. “So I think he’s doing pretty good, for a huge nerd.” 

“A mecha suit?” Maureen says, her face relaxing into a fond smile. “Aw, my Lucas always talked about building a mecha-elevator. He used to draw me the cutest drawings of his ideas when he was a kid. I had to tell him that rocket-launchers would be a little too much weight for them to carry, and he cried until I suggested electro-shock pincers.”

“Your family is terrifying,” Taako says. 

“Thank you,” Maureen says. “So, who are we looking for?” 

“We’re here for Lucretia,” Magnus says. “Is she here? Do you know?” 

Maureen frowns. 

“Not that I know of? But she’ll be in the records. Why would she be here? She saved the world.” 

“Yeah, but she was a  _ huge  _ dick about it, like just a  _ massive  _ wang,” Taako says. 

“We’re just not sure whether, er, what she did balances out,” Magnus says. 

“If saving the world doesn’t entitle you to a peaceful death, I don’t know what does,” Maureen says. 

 

They traverse endless dark corridors and stairwells, leading eventually to an office filled with filing cabinets. 

 

“Alright, you’re free to check if Lucretia is in our records,” Maureen says. 

“You’re making us  _ read _ ,” Taako says, aghast. 

“You’ve written multiple books,” Maureen says flatly. 

“That’s completely besides the point,” Taako says, but opens a filing cabinet and begins to flip through the files. Magnus and Merle join him. 

 

They flip through page after page of official documentation, yellowing parchment, printer paper, little index cards densely packed with handwriting. There’s no clock in the room. This is taking forever. Ghost jail should be more interesting than this.

 

The door bangs open. Magnus jumps, and nearly draws his axe. Taako jumps back. Merle merely looks up. 

 

It’s Kravitz, looking stunned to see them. 

 

“Taako, what are the three of you  _ doing? _ ” 

“Babe! We’re breaking into ghost jail. C’mon, you know this m’dude, you gave me the map to the ghost zone and everything.” 

“I thought you guys were going to get Lucretia, not, not break into the  _ Eternal Stockade! _ ” Kravitz sputters. “Maureen, why did you let them in?” 

“They said they had approval,” Maureen says. “I just work here.” 

“Po-tay-toe, poh-tah-toh,” Taako says, waving a hand dismissively. “We’re checking if Lucretia is in ghost jail.” 

“She’s not,” Kravitz says. 

“Yeah, we’ve gathered that, thanks, babe,” Taako says. “Y’know where she is?” 

____

 

In another plane, at approximately the same time, give or take a couple of space-time units and a couple splashes of quantum entanglement, Istus pours Lucretia another cup of spiced tea. 

 

“This is nice,” Istus says. “I don’t have visitors too often.” 

“No, really,” Lucretia deadpans. She picks up the tea and sips it. To her annoyance, it’s perfect. “Why am I here?” 

“Well, you really ‘wanged things up,’ as some of your friends might say,” Istus says, mildly. “You made me drop an entire row of stitches.” 

“That sounds like a you problem,” Lucretia says. “I’m sure that I’m not that important to the narrative.” 

“You’d be surprised, my dear,” Istus says. “Actually, you were —” 

 

Istus’s stone of farspeech beeps. She doesn’t have it on vibrate. 

 

“Oh, I’m sorry, I have to take this,” Istus apologizes, and picks up her stone. 

 

“Istus, honey, can you pick up your kids? They’re making an awful mess in the astral plane, and I think they’re stressing my boy out,” the Raven Queen complains. “Poor Krav’s been sneaking around my back to help his boyfriend out, and he’s been awfully high-strung lately.” 

“Your boy’s dating one of mine, I don’t know what he was expecting,” Istus says calmly. “Where are they?” 

“The eternal stockade. Pick them up, won’t you?” 

“In a moment, darling,” Istus says. “I need to finish this conversation first. Tell your reaper to calm down a bit, we’ll have everyone in their proper places soon.” 

“Okay,” the Raven Queen says, her voice brightening. “Thanks, honey! Hugs and kisses, mwah, bye!”  

 

She hangs up. Lucretia is staring. Istus shrugs, smiles faintly but genuinely. 

“Dating coworkers. You know how it is,” she says pointedly. Lucretia’s eyes narrow. Istus smiles serenely back. 

 

“It sounds like you’ve got some friends coming after you,” Istus says. Lucretia’s brow furrows. 

“I don’t understand,” she says. 

“What’s there to understand?” Istus says. “You have friends with the means to access the astral plane, and they’re looking for you.” 

“Why?” Lucretia says, the question slipping out before she can stop it. Istus shrugs. 

“That’s their business. We’ll find out soon enough. Enough evading the question, Madame Director.” 

 

Istus leans over the table.

 

“Lucretia, why did you kill yourself?” she asks, still smiling. 

 

The cup falls from Lucretia’s fingers, and tea splashes across her feet. 


	7. lay down your burdens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia remembers. Istus reveals. Tea is consumed.

Istus waves a hand and the spilled tea is gone. Her gaze bores into Lucretia’s soul.

“Lucretia. Why did you kill yourself?” Despite her divine wisdom, Istus doesn’t understand what, exactly, drove the woman in front of her to such extreme measures. As a goddess of Fate, this simply won’t do.

Lucretia sighs and reaches for the teapot on the table between them. She refills the pot from a large enchanted carafe on the table, and is surprised to find that the water is the perfect temperature to brew black tea. Methodically, she opens each tin of tea and inhales deeply, settling on a blend that smells of berries and cream and has whole leaves with tiny blue flowers. She measures it into the infuser deliberately. Once the tea is brewed to her satisfaction, she pours two cups and wraps her hands around the warm ceramic. 

The goddess takes a sip of her tea and smiles faintly. She regards Lucretia expectantly. If Lucretia were corporeal, she assumes she would feel her stomach ball up tight, heart pounding in her ears, but here in the celestial plane, she is preternaturally calm. 

“This tea is wonderful,” Lucretia says, staring down at the contents of her cup. “Where do you get it?” 

“You’re stalling, dear.” Istus picks up her fabric and knits patiently, the moment hanging in the air like a fat drop of water.

“I’m done,” Lucretia says, bitterly, looking back up at Istus. “I saved the world, what more do you want from me?” 

Istus cocks her head, needles still moving at the same steady pace. “It’s not about what I want, dear, it’s about the role you were — are — destined to play. But you can’t play that part until you find your own peace.” Istus has grown to care about Lucretia, watching her from a distance, satisfied that she would not only fulfill her role in saving the world but would also allow fate to guide her in the aftermath. She didn’t count on this guilt, the shame that rolls off of Lucretia in roiling waves.  

Lucretia has always subscribed to the idea of penance, of achieving absolution and forgiveness by doing enough. It’s shattering, to be faced with the fact that the ultimate penance is not enough. She knew it would be easy to kill herself, and she was right — but the aftermath is harder than anything she could have imagined. By ending her own life Lucretia had hoped to achieve a measure of salvation. She had expected oblivion. She did not expect Istus to intervene. She didn’t think herself worthy.

Istus is right, of course. If nothingness is no longer an option, then, well. Lucretia takes a shaky breath. She puts down her now-empty teacup and is assaulted by a memory she can never hope to forget, no matter how much time she gives it to soften.

Few other people have walked the valley of darkness that Lucretia has traversed. Six, to be exact. In their initial flight from the  Hunger — what they later termed their first cycle — the crew had no opportunity for anything but sheer terror. Fleeing for their lives, with a single focus in mind, there is no space for grief, no space to process the unthinkable. When her first watch on this strange new world is complete, Lucretia collapses into a deep, dreamless sleep.

But when she wakes, she cannot keep still. She paces the deck, wears a path in the hallways, wrings her hands and prays. She had never been the religious type, but under the circumstances, she recites a constant quiet stream of invocations and desperate pleas for the people she left behind. 

Despite the clear memory of her home being utterly destroyed, devoured, and rent into nothingness, Lucretia hopes against hope that she can return home. Her nails bleed and she doesn’t notice or care. How dare she survive? She asks her crewmates what the seven of them did to deserve survival and no one has a good answer. Sometimes things just happen. But to continue, they must believe themselves worthy of survival. There is no one else.

Lucretia startles out of the memory. She is sitting on a stone bench in a beautiful garden, Istus knitting quietly by her side. The scent of magnolia flowers hangs heavy in the air. 

“I was helpless and watched them die.” She asks for absolution again. She remembers.

The disquiet in her soul runs deep, following her from world to world. She begins and ends each cycle grieving — and secretly hoping that they will return home. That this cycle will be the last. Every time they fail to recover the Light, every world where time runs out, every plane they abandon to be destroyed, eats at her. 

Out of her vicious reverie, Lucretia wraps her arms around herself, trying to bulwark herself against the flood of grief. Istus watches her — not clinical, but calm. 

“I let the world end, dozens of times, and I didn’t feel anything.” 

“You did what you had to do. Lucretia, you protected yourself and your crew.” 

But Lucretia remembers when she made mistakes. Inconsequential mistakes are one thing — she will always be reformed, whole again. She is expendable if necessary. But the people she encountered, they were at the mercy of these aliens and their ability to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. 

The thirty-fourth cycle is the worst one yet. The coastal city they’ve landed near had weathered cyclones before, though none were as massive as the one bearing down on them. Lucretia, noted by the city’s leadership for her analytical and organizational abilities, has been tasked with organizing the evacuation. She should have been able to protect the inhabitants from the storm, and she never should have made the mistakes she did. 

She should have seen it coming. She should have known there was a chokepoint, should have studied more meteorology, should have consulted sooner, should have, should have, should have. But as the maelstrom slows and leaves the smell of petrichor and a soul laid to waste in its wake, there are left a full hundred thousand dead. Lucretia is alive. She returns to the ship,  the spring in her soul tightening until it snaps. There is only one way out. 

Belladonna is an ironic name, she notes wryly as she swallows the poison. It’s what she hopes will be her last coherent thought. Belladonna’s effects are anything but beautiful, and Lucretia loses all semblance of grace as she deliriously tears at her robes in an effort to quench the horrible heat devouring her from the inside out. It’s terrible. The hallucinations should have been a relief, a sign that everything would be over soon. Instead they are monstrous, and she screams until her throat is raw, not sure if the sound is even real. She regrets. As it has been so many times for her, there is no way out but through, and in the brief moments of lucidity, she prays for the release of death with a sincerity she didn’t know she could muster. 

Her friends find her, before she’s gone. 

But despite everyone’s best attempts, her prayers are answered. Yet Lucretia does not receive the peace, the absolution that she had hoped for — not for long, anyway. She is reformed on the deck, shot through with silver threads, nineteen again, whole again. Lucretia is immediately tackled by Magnus in an embrace, and buried in a pile of bodies. That night, she’s not allowed to sleep alone. When she awakens, Lucretia is sandwiched between Lup and Magnus. She can’t bring herself to ask if they managed to recover the Light in the previous cycle. She’s not sure she can handle the answer either way.

Back in Istus’s domain, Lucretia picks a rose in this celestial garden and shreds it methodically, removing petals one by one and tearing each petal into strands that float into the mulch. It is very peaceful here. “I couldn’t live with myself anymore. I couldn’t do anything to make it better.” 

Lucretia remembers watching Lup cut down in a stupid, pointless battle, and afterward, can’t stop blaming herself for not thinking quickly enough, for not protecting her sister. She fucked up. It was all her fault. She’s not  _ necessary _ in this scenario. She doesn’t deserve the rest of this. Three days later, Lucretia flings herself off a cliff in the remote wilds of this plane, swan diving into oblivion, and her body is not recovered. When they reformed at the beginning of a new cycle, she told them she died in battle, vengeful and heroic. If anyone questioned this story, they never confronted her about it.

Two cycles later, 138 days in, Lucretia poisons herself. It looks like an accident. Her death is slower than she’d have liked, and it’s the last one for awhile. The crew passes through several worlds and all seven survive, and perhaps they grow complacent. When hostile denizens of the next plane cut Lucretia down, she embraces it. The next four worlds are traumatizing for everyone. Lucretia is almost never there to witness it. She kills herself again and again, when the weight of the multiverse is too much on her shoulders. She justifies it easily enough — she’s always destined to return to the deck on the first day in a new plane, she’s not necessary to the narrative being told in this world — and coming up with lies is easier than facing her complicity.

But after she is the only one to survive the judges, she stops. The stakes are higher than she realized. There are seven of them, and someone needs to stay alive. It might be her again, and that’s more important than her emotions. Despite her guilt, she must continue their mission.

Then they arrive in Faerun. 

Lucretia remembers the first time someone used one of their artifacts — turning a prosperous town into a perfect circle of glass. Lup wandered around in a daze for days, practically catatonic. It takes a week before she says more than two words to anyone.  The knowledge that this is their final cycle makes the devastation even less forgivable. Lucretia is terrified of the day someone uses the Bulwark Staff to kill. She works twice as hard, doesn’t sleep for days while frantically filling journals, desperate to feel something else besides the numbness deep in her core.

She wants to die, Lucretia thinks. But it would be permanent. It was never permanent, before. 

“Every time I close my eyes I see the people I’ve killed. I just can’t live with myself anymore,” Lucretia says to Lup. This is the closest that she will come to admitting her darkest thoughts to anyone.

Lup doesn’t have a response, because she sees it too. Lup shakes her head, looking down at her feet, clad in threadbare gray socks. She slumps down in the nearest chair and stares into space. Lucretia pads back to her room and sits at her desk, quill in hand, and closes her eyes in an attempt to stop her head from spinning. Tears burn behind them, and her mouth is sour with the taste of her regrets and worries. Her arms feel too heavy to even attempt writing. She can’t remember how long she sits like this. 

But the relics are used more and more. The destruction and the grief becomes normalized. They get used to it. One more town, one more city, one more coastline. This, for Lucretia, is worse than the wreckage happening below. 

She starts to feel herself twist in a familiar tension, but she can’t give up here, not now, not yet. She formulates a plan, instead. 

Lucretia blinks and she’s back in the celestial plane, walking among blooming cherry trees that stretch as far as the eye can see.

“I was so determined to save this world, even if it meant I had to destroy everything I had,” she says, voice cracking.

“You were. You did,” Istus’s voice is gentle.

“Maybe it all would have been worth it if I was right. But I was wrong, and I put my friends —” She drops her head into her hands and takes a shaky breath. “My  _ family _ through all that, for nothing.”

For her plan to succeed, Lucretia has to sacrifice her bonds. She becomes more and more reclusive, spending days and nights reading, re-reading, redacting. It has to be perfect. And when the day comes to erase their records, she is resolute. One by one, she severs the ties that bind them, making new lives for them alone and unknown. It is the hardest thing she’s ever done. The memory makes her gasp in its vividness and she doubles over, leaning against a tree, hot tears prickling her eyes. Back in the garden. 

“Do you  _ want _ their forgiveness?” Istus asks, quietly.

Lucretia shakes her head. “It’s not a question of what I want, I don’t deserve it.”

“Do any of us?”

Lucretia laughs, a dry quiet chuckle unaccompanied by a smile.

“What do you even want from me?”

“Lucretia, you are the chronicler for every world. And you have neglected to finish your task. Knowledge demands to be collected,” Istus says. 

“You want me to build a library? Anyone could do that.”

Istus shakes her head and purses her lips."I don't know why it has to be you, but this is irrefutable." She gestures at the mess Lucretia has made of her knitting, the tangled knots. 

She opens a rift in space-time and the women are standing in a hallway with soaring vaulted ceilings and intricate geometric carvings. Voices and papers rustling echo in the distance, and this place feels somehow familiar. Lucretia flips through her memories, searching for this building in her decades, and comes up empty. All she can feel is the hush of a holy space and a breath of peace.

“Where are we?”

Istus ignores the question but glances at her. “Lucretia, have you forgiven yourself?” The goddess’s voice echoes through the stone hallways.

  
“I wouldn’t be here if I had,” she replies dryly.

Lucretia’s fear that everyone knows her sins and is able to pass judgment has come to fruition. Her mistakes, broadcast to the world, what she’s done to her family, public knowledge. She took the coward’s way out, and despite her desire for atonement, she now has one more thing to blame herself for. Facing her family is the last thing she wants to do.

Istus looks at her, unforgiving. “You’re going to have to tell them sometime, Lucretia.”

“They don’t need to know. Let them grieve. I can’t give them something else to hate me for. I’m not going to.”

She can’t help but feel like a child being reprimanded.

“Lucretia, forgiveness is not earned. It’s a gift freely given, and you have to honor that.” 

“They haven’t forgiven me, though.”

The stone walls shift around the two women and they return to the cozy front room that Istus first showed her. There is second pot of steaming tea on the table. Lucretia has scarcely finished pouring herself a cup when there’s a knock at the door. She startles and stares at the door, wary. Istus smiles. 

“Ah, your family. Why don’t you let them in, dear? You have quite a lot to talk about.” Lucretia hesitates for a moment, then sets her jaw and stands. Her blood runs cold. 

There will be no grace for her.


	8. Family Arguments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> its not a real family argument until someone yells and someone cries and sometimes its the same people but that's okay.

The doors open with a bang.

Magnus rushes in. He crashes through the doorway and, catching sight of Lucretia, he runs over and envelopes her in a crushing embrace. Lucretia staggers back and hugs him back without thinking. Taako and Merle follow him — Merle waddling quickly, Taako bringing up the rear, sauntering next to Kravitz as if the entire situation is beneath him.

The room feels too small.

“You’re okay! Well, I mean, you’re dead. But you’re okay! As okay as a dead person can be!” Magnus exclaims.

“What are you doing here,” Lucretia asks flatly.

Merle pats her hip, the highest he can reach.

“Well, we came to rescue ya of course! Angus is graduating next week, and being dead isn’t an excuse for not coming,” he jokes.

“Hey, are you crying?” Magnus says, leaning back, staring at her. He brushes her cheek, and his fingers touch dampness. “Was Istus making you cry? That’s kinda fucked up.” He glances over to Istus. She’s placidly knitting, smiling serenely at the reunion happening in front of them. Magnus narrows his eyes at her.

“No high-fives for you, this time,” he says. Istus smiles wider.

“Well, death is a little bit upsetting, dears,” she says. “Especially suicide.”

“What,” Magnus says.

Lucretia whirls around, or tries to, but she’s stopped by Magnus’s hold on her, suddenly vice-like. She wrenches herself out of his arms anyway, and strides over to Istus, flinty-eyed and  iron-spined.

“Why did you tell them?” she says, outrage coloring her voice. “You had no right!”

Istus just looks at her.

“Well, it’s not like you were going to,” Istus says. “They found your body, darling. They burnt your corpse. They deserve the truth, don’t you think?”

“No!” Lucretia says. Her hands are trembling. She balls them into fists to stop the shaking. It doesn’t work. Istus stands.

“I think the four of you might need to talk some some things over,” she says. “Tea’s in the pot, try not to break anything too important. Kravitz, come with me — we’ve got some interdepartmental business to talk about with your boss.”

She walks across the room, motioning to Kravitz to come with her. He gives Taako a glance, and Taako shrugs, crossing his arms.

“Get outta here, thug, this is gonna get messy,” Taako says.

“Are you sure?” Kravitz says. He’s been growing increasingly stiff as the conversation develops.

Taako smiles grimly and inclines his head.

Kravitz nods, squeezes Taako’s shoulder comfortingly, and follows Istus out of the room. Silence expands in the space they left.

Here is the scene: Lucretia, back to her family, afraid to face them.

Here is the only thing worse than guilt: pity.

Magnus, center of the room, about to walk over to Lucretia and make her face him. Merle, standing beside him, holding his EXTREME TEEN BIBLE in hand. Taako, walking over to the tea set and pouring himself a cup of tea, draping himself over an armchair, staring at the scene through narrowed eyes. A clock ticks. There is no time in the celestial plane.

“You killed yourself?” Magnus asks. His voice cracks.

“I— “ Lucretia says. She still does not turn. She remembers: Magnus crying on her shoulder, Lup telling her that if there was ‘anything she ever needed, babe, or if she ever needed to talk,’ the way that the her crewmembers never left her alone for months afterward. It was exhausting. She got better at hiding.

“Again?” Merle says, voice heavy.

“I didn’t, it’s not like—” Lucretia says, stuttering. It’s hard to explain. Once is a fluke, easily explained by stressful situations and early trauma, but twice is the beginnings of a pattern. “We’re not doing this,” she says, and motions to leave the room.

“Oh no you don’t,” Magnus says, striding forward and grabbing her wrist from behind.

“Hey!” she says, but Magnus just manhandles her over to one of the overstuffed armchairs and sits her down in it. Merle hands her a cup of tea. She takes it. This is the worst.

“Talk,” Magnus demands.

“No!” Lucretia says.

Taako throws his hat at her, turning everyone’s attention to where he’s sitting.

“I knew there was something suspicious about this whole death thing,” Taako says. “This is the _third fucking time_ , Luce, you don’t get a PRIZE if you fill out the punch card.”

“Third?” Merle says.

“Third?!” Magnus echoes.

“Third,” Taako says firmly. “Oh, I see you shaking your head, Lucy, you stop that right now. Yeah. Ch’boy’s droppin’ the bomb. You didn’t think I knew about the poison, but I did. You think I don’t check that shit? You took it out of Barold’s lab! Of course one of us would find out!”

“Taako, why didn’t you tell us about this?” Merle says.

“As if none of the rest of us didn’t have fucked up coping mechanisms, back during reset century,” Taako fires back.

“You knew about that?” Lucretia says, aghast.

“Taako, what the fuck?” Magnus says. “Why wouldn’t you tell us about this?”

“Oh, so we’re all ganging up on Taako, now,” Taako says. “Okay, fine. We’ll go there! We’re going there! I didn’t say jack shit cause it wasn’t none of my business, and jeez, iunno, Luce just looked so uncomfortable after the first time. Death wasn’t permanent! I started locking up the poisons and I told Cap’nport, what else do you want from me? Maybe we should be grilling Luce about her death, not me!”

He kicks Lucretia gently in the shin. She’s curled up on the seat, legs brought up to her chest.  

“What have you got to say for yourself, huh?”

“Well if we’re talking prizes, I’ve paid for twelve, this one should be free,” Lucretia says, spitting sarcasm like acid.

“Thirteen?” Taako falters. Lucretia clamps her mouth shut. It slipped out, she didn’t mean to say that, the rest of the suicides were supposed to be a secret she took to her grave. Technically, she did. Lucretia never made any promises about after her death. Magnus sits down next to her.

“Explain everything,” Magnus demands, his large hands on Lucretia’s, his serious expression more arresting than any grip.

“I don’t want to,” Lucretia says. “You, you three, you can’t make me talk.”

“Actually, we can,” Taako says. “Merle, do that thing you do instead of anything useful, ever.”

“I cast Zone of Truth!” Merle announces. White light shines in a cone around them.

“You know you don’t have to say that every time, right?” Taako says, rolling his eyes.

“That’s not how Zone of Truth works,” Lucretia says. “I don’t have to talk. You can’t make me.”

“Lucretia,” Merle says, and he sounds tired. They’ve traveled far. “We care about you.”

“I don’t,” Taako announces. “I just need to make that real clear, I don’t.”

Magnus stomps over to Taako and looms. He can’t help it. It just happens.

“Can you stop being an asshole for one — just one fucking moment?” he says. “I know you’re still pissed at her, and fine, that’s fine, she screwed you over, she screwed us all over, but Lucretia’s dead, and she killed herself, and apparently she’s been doing this shit ever since cycle 16. We came all this way to get her back. So can you please stop being such a dick?”

Taako stands up, walks forward, crowding Magnus back.

“No, I can’t, I’m not being a dick, I’m just telling the truth, my man. I don’t care, I’m tired of Lucretia lying all the time, like what the hell, she killed herself rather than talk to us? I get that she’s not gonna talk to me, but she killed herself rather than talk to you? What the fuck! Maybe I shoulda — ohhh fuck I failed the charisma save, and now I’m in the radius, aren’t I. Fuck!”

Taako slaps a hand over his mouth. “Alright, you two boneheads take it from here, I’m not sayin’ jack shit,” he says, muffled behind his fingers.

Merle sighs heavily, and pats Lucretia’s knee.

“You’re right, Lucy. We can’t make you talk about anything you don’t wanna talk about. But I think that, well, if maybe ya had talked to us before all this went down, we wouldn’t be here. And if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s never too late to make amends.”

Merle died the most out of them, Lucretia remembers. She puts down her cup of tea. Merle talked with John, over and over. After the day of Story and Song, Merle told her about the last time he saw John, the beach, their last conversation.

Lucretia looks down at her hands, more out of a desire to avoid their eyes than anything else.

“I —” Lucretia says. “I finished everything I was in the world to do. I didn’t deserve second chances, or forgiveness, or anything. You, the three of you were the only reason that I didn’t wang everything up even more than I had, and there was no reason for me to stay stay. The best thing, the only thing I could do was leave. I deserved this. You didn’t _need_ me. It makes for a better narrative, if I'm dead.”

“Bullshit.”

Lucretia looks up. Taako's looking at her like she's glass. As if he could stare right through her.

"Lucy, you dipshit," Taako says. "First off, your life isn't a fucking _novella._ And look. Listen. I'm never going to fucking forgive you, you know that, right? Like that train has left the station, my man, it's all the way down the tracks."

"I'm not asking for your forgiveness, Taako," Lucretia says bitterly. “I’m not asking for anyone’s forgiveness.” Taako rolls his eyes. He dusts his hat off and puts it back on his head.

“That’s the fucking point. You didn’t ask. You just decided the whole goddamn world was better off without you, didn’t you? Listen, I’m Taako, from TV. I get called out for my well-fuckin-deserved egomania on the reg, but this? This takes the cake. You think that you’re the one who gets to decide these things? You think that you’re the one who gets to choose who lives and who dies? I bet you do, Miss, ‘lemme just _erase my whole fucking family’s memories_ ,’ Miss, ‘lemme just _erase Taako’s sister out of existence_ ,’ but you know what, Lucy? No. Nuh-uh. You don’t get to do that, Luce, you don’t get to take the easy way out. The rest of us, we’re living with the fucking choices you made, and we’re still here, what makes _you_ so special?”

Lucretia stands.

“I’m not!” she says. “It’s not about that, Taako, it’s about absolution.”

He sneers, steps forward so he’s nose-to-nose with her. “Death isn’t _penance,_ idiot.”

“Settle down, you two,” Merle says, wedging his way in between the two of them.  “Leave room for Pan. Okay, ol’ Merle sees what the problem is here.”

“Ew,” Taako says, stepping back hastily. “First of all, uh, Merle, _gross._ ”

“Shut up, Taako,” Merle says, not unkindly. He turns back to Lucretia. “First of all, Taako’s right. It’s not about deserving, or forgiveness, or anythin’ like that. Most of us? We forgave you long ago. But it _is_ about the fact that you felt like you couldn’t even try and fix things, that you felt like you couldn’t come to us. Now _that’s_ a problem, Luce.”

Lucretia shrugs, crossing her arms. She wipes her eyes.

“My, my death wasn’t — isn’t — your problem.”

“Lucretia. You’re family. Of _course_ it was,” Magnus says.

“I didn’t deserve your help,” Lucretia says, voice like a scraped wound.

“That’s the point, Luce,” Merle says. “It wasn’t about deserving.”

“Wasn’t it?” Lucretia says. She takes a long, shuddering breath. “I just, I just didn’t want, it was too late, and—” She trails off. She’s crying again.

“Hey Luce?” Magnus says.

“What do you want, Magnus,” Lucretia says. He steps forward. He embraces her before she can move.

“I’m sorry you felt like you didn’t have any other options,” Magnus says softly, into her hair.

“Yeah,” Lucretia says wetly. “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus content: 
> 
> “Is it safe to go in now?” Kravitz asks, quietly.  
> “No, dear, they’re having a moment,” Istus says.


	9. death, be not proud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys say goodbye. Istus knits.

“So, Luce, are you coming back with us or what?” Magnus asks, nearly flippant.

Lucretia doesn’t say anything, just holds him closer and nods into his chest, one arm on top of Merle’s head.

Istus slips in silently and Lucretia is the only one who takes notice. The women share a look, and Istus clears her throat.

Taako looks over his shoulder, almost embarrassed that he has his hand on Lucretia’s arm. He steps back.

“We’re taking her back now, if you don’t mind. Ango would hate to have the closest thing to a mother he has not at his graduation, and you know I hate disappointing my boy,” he snaps, with no real malice behind it.

“No, you’re not,” Istus says. Taako blinks, and turns on his heel and shrugs at his friends.

“Well, fuck. I thought that would work. I’m out of ideas.”

Lucretia sniffles quietly. “You don’t have to intercede on my behalf.”

“Sure we don’t have to, but we’re gonna,” Merle says firmly.

“Didn’t you, y’know,” Lucretia makes a flamethrower gesture.

Magnus rubs the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Yeah, we did do that. But we have Barold and his weird gooey clone pod, and he’s like, the best necromancer in the multiverse, I think we can sort something out. Between him and nerdlord —“ Magnus is cut off by Istus’s stern interjection.

“What part of ‘no’ do you three not understand? You have more than filled your bullshit quota, you can’t just go ‘yanking people back’ into the material plane.”

“We went through all this and now we don’t even get to bring her back? Nuh-uh, that’s the real bullshit,” Taako sneers. He crams his hands into his pockets, pacing back and forth, neatly sidestepping the zone of truth that still lingers.

“She’s right, you guys. I made my choices, and now I have to live with them. Or, well, uh, un-live with them. It’s a metaphor. Whatever.” Lucretia shakes her head, with echoes of their Lucy having to deal with a hundred years of bullshit. She is resigned.

Taako is apoplectic.

“Geez Lucy, we’re not gonna make you into a zombie, how gauche is that--”

“Yeah, besides, Merle would probably accidentally blast you with multiple Della Reeses or whatever and we’d be right back in this mess,” Magnus adds.

Merle nods sheepishly.

“That’s probably true,” he says.

Istus puts her knitting down again and sighs deeply. “I don't know how I could be any clearer than I have been,” she says. “Lucretia, you can't go home again.”

The finality of her words finally starts to sink in, and the trickle of tears on Lucretia’s face renews itself. Merle clings to her leg and she clings to Magnus’s arm, Taako hovering almost menacingly.

“It’s time to say goodbye, now. You’ve been here too long, and it’s high time you started playing by the rules,” Istus says.

“But, like, we can come visit, right? Forever is a really long time,” Magnus replies.

Istus makes an exasperated noise in the back of her throat.

“You can’t come traipsing in and out of the astral plane whenever you want, reaper boyfriend or no! And who said anything about forever? You’re mortal too,” she says.

None of them are strangers to mourning, and certainly they have long since come to terms with loss. After all, they are all that’s left of their home, and they’ve all witnessed the end of the world a hundred times over. They are inured to the abstraction of loss, to witnessing others’ grief, to the demise of people who have been doomed since their arrival as harbingers of death. They’ve long since come to terms with the fact that they are the only real people, and the concept of one of them being permanently gone is almost incomprehensible. It can’t be real, and this can’t be happening.

Lucretia sniffles quietly. “It’s not like you’ll never see me again. Go back home.”

“Stop —” Taako hiccups and angrily wipes at his eyes. “Stop being such a baby about this. We’re bringing you back whether or not you like it.”

“I don’t think I have much choice in the matter, and besides, the sea of souls is as peaceful as it gets,” Lucretia says gently.

“You’re going to the soul soup? What the fuck?” Taako squawks, and looks at Istus balefully. “She doesn’t get an island or anything?”

“Dear, that’s where souls go. You know this,” Istus says, still calm.

“What about Angus?” Magnus demands, “He’s a kid! He needs what’s basically his mom.”

Lucretia draws a sharp breath in. She hadn’t thought of Angus this way. But of course, Magnus is right, she’s the only mother he’s ever had. She imagines him grieving her, imagines him at her funeral, and she supposes the others will have to step in and mother him where she has abandoned him.

They've said goodbye before, they've reminisced before, but the finality of this farewell sits heavy on their shoulders. There is no more renewal, and the words stick sour in her throat.

Lucretia remembers lonely nights during that first cycle, mapping the stars of this strange world while her crewmates, not yet the family they would become, explored and sought a way home. They were not just physically young then, they were naive, only one apocalypse behind them with a hundred more stretching out before them.

Late in the year, Lucretia is sandwiched between Lup and Magnus in what can only be described as a pile on the deck. Ostensibly they are double-checking Lucretia’s star maps, but by the time they are inventing their fifteenth constellation of the night, all pretense of chronicling has been abandoned. Lup points directly overhead, tracing out a long cross shape capped by a triangle.

“Look, it’s the Crane, don’t you think?” she says, only a small hitch in her voice betraying her.

No one answers. It is not a welcome reminder of the home they lost, the people they lost, and the business they left unfinished. They all carry regrets with them, goodbyes left unsaid and air left uncleared. Some have more than others.

Lucretia remembers stargazing in Faerun for the first time. The heady mix of excitement and anxiety that kept all seven of them awake while waiting for the Light to fall, hoping that this world would allow them to enact their plan and bring the endless apocalypse to an end.

There’s no way for them to know, but this is the last time the seven of them will be at peace together. For the last time, they have hope, they are young, and the world might not end. There are no relics to tear them apart or to ravage the world below. There has not been enough time for Lucretia’s face to become lined and weathered, for Magnus’s black eye to heal, for Lup’s hands to become scarred, for any of them to be changed by this world that has chosen them.

She has mourned and been mourned dozens of times, and for the last time, she does not want to let go. There are no words.

“It’s time you left. We have some business here,” Istus says quietly. She gently shepherds the still-living to the open door, which opens onto the material plane. Like Orpheus and Job before them, Merle, Magnus, and Taako cannot resist the temptation of looking back. Lucretia stands before the Goddess of Fate, ramrod straight, spine of steel. She does not weep.

“I am so proud of you, Lucretia,” Istus murmurs, and kisses her forehead.

“But we still have this matter to work out,” Istus says, gesturing to the tangles in her knitting, and clears some space on the table for a bowl of shimmering beads, pearly and luminescent with every color imaginable.

She brings a tiny silver hook into existence out of nowhere, and starts to pick up the dropped stitches. The goddess works methodically, head down, adding the tiny beads back, restoring the pattern she so carefully planned.

As Istus continues her repairs, Lucretia begins to glow, gold light outlining her and brightening almost imperceptibly. She is warm, enveloped in divine light, and the light begins to sink under her skin and into her core. As Istus finishes securing the final stitch in its rightful place, Lucretia, illuminated, looks on in wonder.

She phases in and out of the room, disappearing and reappearing in countless parts of the celestial plane. Or perhaps the room phases in and out, and really, it’s Lucretia who is appearing. Her apotheosis brings a warm smile to Istus’s face. In a way, now, Lucretia is home. For the first time, Lucretia feels truly at peace.

She never died, not really, and it strikes her as ironic that she finally greets Death as an old friend, and she is snatched from eternal rest by divine intervention, again. Despite the obvious invalidity of such a deus ex machina in this narrative, she has made her peace with it.

Lucretia finds herself in a small house that seems to form itself around her as she regards it. She touches a wall experimentally, and it becomes brick, then glass, then stone. She smiles to herself.

In a small town on the coast of the Stillwater sea, a young woman cries out in fear as flames lick at her heels. She falls to her knees and scoops up as many books as she can, and in the celestial plane, Lucretia somehow knows this.

She knows two things: the knowledge this girl protects is unique and sacred, and she can save it.

So she does.

Lucretia is resplendent. She appears, wreathed in gold, and she is recognized, not as a human savior, but as the divine being she has become. She steps from a rift and walks untouched through the flames, carrying a stack of books to the shocked Drow girl who sits outside of the now-ruined library, nursing her wounds and too traumatized to cry.

Istus frowns at a split stitch, ladders it down, and brings the strands back together.

Lucretia is finally enough. She is not her mistakes, she is not her sins, and she is whole.

The complex pattern in the beads finally begins to come into focus, gold and silver and blue and purple and every other color dancing through the neverending lace.

She hears whispers of an epithet, one she can’t dream of living up to. Prayers begin to trickle in, addressed to Our Lady Of Light. On the ashes of the small provincial library, a humble temple begins to rise.

Far away, Istus knits busily, looping the dropped stitch through the last few strands.

Each of the seven, in the days following Lucretia’s death, awakens expecting to find her in her quarters, journaling by Fisher’s gentle light, a new world under their bow. Taako never lets on, but he grieves her too. Lup knows, and holds her brother that much closer in the night.

Istus turns her knitting over in her hands. She counts the beads and yarnovers, satisfied that her repairs are complete. The pattern is, once again, perfect.

Lucretia’s ghost, graciously, inspires reconciliation. She is, ironically, the silver thread that ties them together and reminds the six that this is their last world. There is nothing to knit them back together again, no guarantee that every goodbye will be followed by another hello. Without Lucretia, it’s in sharper relief than ever before.

She watches them read her journals, the ones that were not broadcast across the plane. They consider destroying them, in the overwhelming magnitude of grief.

A young woman holds a book over a blazing bonfire, hesitating.

An old man breathes his last, library left to no one in his will.

A child writes her first words and her parents don’t bother to save the paper.

And then, light.


	10. Domes. Just, Domes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> reunions, returnings, domes. lots of domes.

Angus is a full head shorter than pretty much every other person in his graduating class — save for the dwarves and halflings. The perils of being a preteen graduating from college. He looks absolutely charming in his robe and cap, fidgeting as the dean makes a speech. 

 

Despite everything, life goes on. 

 

Half the Bureau of Benevolence, along with the entire IPRE crew take up an absurd number of seats. Nobody wanted to say no to heroes. There’s an empty chair, next to Magnus. They had reserved the rows months ago. 

When the boys had returned from the astral plane, the others had asked them where they had gone. They refused to say. 

 

“We were distraught,” Merle says, straightfaced. 

“Too sad to function,” Magnus says. 

“I wasn’t sad at all,” Taako says. Magnus elbows him. 

 

But there had been a sort of truth to what they were saying, a sheen of grief that stained their speech. So no one had pressed too much. 

 

The dean drones on. Something about making the school proud, going out to do good in the world, etcetera. The usual academic drivel. 

Taako slumps in his seat. “This is taking for-ever. Why can’t they just hand out the diplomas so we can get outta here? This is  _ torture. _ ” 

“You’ve been sitting here for ten minutes,” Davenport whispers back. “Well, actually that’s pretty good for you.” 

 

A blinding flash. A clap like thunder. 

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Lucretia says. 

 

The room is silent. A goddess appears, the spitting image of a dead hero, bathed in radiance. What else could there be but silence? 

 

Merle stands up. 

“Istus  _ lied _ to us!” Merle says, indignantly. 

 

Angus runs across the stage, his cap falling from his head, and barrels into Lucretia like a tiny cannonball before anyone can stop him. She hugs him back. 

 

#

 

The temple to Lucretia, Our Lady of Light, is being built in the center of Neverwinter. Artemis Sterling had personally donated the plot of land.

 

“Show me the plans again,” Magnus says. 

“Sir, you’re not actually in charge here,” the architect says, exasperated. 

“Which one of us saved the world? That’s right, it’s me,” Magnus says. “How’d you come up with this? These are nutso.” 

“They came to me in a dream,” the architect says. 

“That sounds fake, but okay,” Magnus says. The architect grits her teeth. Magnus stares her down. He’s ready to fight. He’s always ready to fight. 

 

“She’s right, actually. I gave her the inspiration for the blueprints in a dream,” Lucretia says, appearing behind Magnus’s shoulder. 

 

Magnus jumps.  

 

“Luce!” He wraps his arms around her waist and swings her around. “You scared me!” 

“Hi, Magnus,” she says, letting herself be swung, laughing. “It’s good to see you.” 

“Luce, have you ever designed a building before?” Magnus says, gesturing to the blueprints. 

“I designed the moonbase,” she says, defensively. Magnus snorts. 

“Okay, well, I know you love domes but this temple? Too many domes. Way too many domes.” 

“It’s  _ my _ temple,” Lucretia says. “Who’s the goddess here, me or you?” 

“Me,” Magnus says. 

“ _ Magnus! _ ” Lucretia says. He grins. She smiles back.

 

His expression shifts to something more tender. They’ve known each other a long time. 

“I missed you,” he says. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m getting there,” she says, and with surprise, realizes that it is true. 

 

#

 

The invitation had been slipped under her door, as if this was undergrad all over again. Who knew the gods were so immature. Lucretia hadn’t planned to go, but when Istus and the Raven Queen had shown up at the door, tipsy, all enigmatic smiles and persuading voices, she had no choice but to go with them. 

 

Lucretia suspects that they think of her as a bit of a  _ project.  _ But there are worse people to be mentored by than Fate and Death. Knowledge, she thinks, is something of both. 

 

It’s a nice party. It reminds her of the Solstice celebrations they had on the moonbase. 

 

“Merle!” Lucretia exclaims. “What are you doing here?” 

Merle shrugs. “Pan works in mysterious ways.” 

Lucretia squints at him, and Merle laughs. 

“Nah, just kidding, Pan invites me to these once in awhile.” 

“Oh,” Lucretia says. Merle pats the seat next to him. Lucretia sits down tentatively. 

 

“How’s the Celestial Plane treatin’ ya?” Merle asks, handing her a glass of something smoking. “Here, you’ll like this.” 

 

“Thanks,” Lucretia says. She takes a sip. She does like it — it tastes like cherries and good wine. “It’s… not bad. It’s sort of nice, having a purpose.” 

 

“Lucretia, I’m not asking about whether ya feel useful, I’m asking whether you feel any  _ better _ ,” Merle says, shaking his head. 

“Aren’t they the same thing?” Lucretia says wryly. 

“Lucretia,” Merle says, in the dadliest tone of voice he can muster. 

“It’s good,” Lucretia says. “I mean it, Merle.” 

“Okay,” Merle says. He takes a sip of his own drink. 

“Hey, don’t think goddess-ing,” Merle makes a floaty gesture with his hands, “gets you outta visiting, alright? Come visit us mortals, every so often, kiddo.”

 

# 

 

The temple is, in the end, a mass of domes. It’s kinda tacky, Taako thinks, walking up the stairs in a glitterbomb dress made entirely of sequins. 

 

He doesn’t really want to be here, he thinks, as he walks through the halls. There’s a huge statue of Lucretia, larger than life, in front of the pews. It’s made of crystal, and it’s hollow, meant to be lit by an ethereal flame. They do that during services. 

 

Taako stands in front of the statue. He’s not sure just how to go about this. Taako absolutely refuses to get on his knees for her. Maybe he just….starts talking? 

 

He takes a deep breath. 

 

“Okay, Lucy, so I know I said some shit, and you were clearly having a hard time, but honestly you also took away like, three quarters of my memories, m’dude, so I think we’re even, you dig?” 

“For  _ fuck’s  _ sake, Taako,” Lucretia says. 

 

Taako jumps, drops his hat, whirls around. She’s standing there, looking unimpressed. 

 

“Christ! You’re going to give me a heart attack, Luce, oh fuck, you’re glowing. Wow. It’s a good look on you.” 

“Thanks,” she says. 

 

They stand there, staring at each other for a moment. Lucretia, bathed in an otherworldly glow. Taako, sparkling in sequins. 

 

“Are we good?” Taako asks, condensing arguments, hurtful digs, months of not speaking, multiple suicides, all into a single phrase. It’s woefully reductive. Lucretia gets it.  

“We’re good,” she says.   
  
  


“I think this is that part where we’re supposed to hug now, I mean, I know you’re not supposed to touch goddesses and all, but,” Taako says, and steps forward. Lucretia rolls her eyes, and hugs him back. “I’m glad, you know. That things turned out okay, after everything,” he admits. “I’m glad you’re okay, now. Are you okay?” 

“I’m okay,” she says. 

“Cool. Uh. I’ll see you around, okay?” Taako says, and his voice is choked up in a way that Lucretia knows he won’t appreciate her pointing out. 

“Okay,” she says, and smiles at him. “I’m glad things turned out okay too.” 

 

She steps back, and fades into light. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU FOR READING! WE LOVE YOU ALL! <3 
> 
> liner notes [here](http://anonymousalchemist.tumblr.com/post/167072721812/reunion-tour-rewritten-liner-notes)

**Author's Note:**

> Scream @ us about TAZ on tumblr! Iz is @[anonymousalchemist](http://anonymousalchemist.tumblr.com/) and Emi is @[emi--rose](http://emi--rose.tumblr.com/).


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